The wages of garment workers toiling away in squalid conditions are getting worse, even as retail brands increase their orders.

A garment worker protests outside the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Export Association office building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, last week. A new study shows that wages have declined for garment workers worldwide over the past decade.

The wages of garment workers toiling away in squalid conditions are not improving as retail brands increase their orders — they are getting worse.

More orders placed by big brands in nations such as Bangladesh and Cambodia do not necessarily translate into financial gains — or even a living wage — for workers there, said Ben Hensler, deputy director and general counsel of the Worker Rights Consortium.

The consortium, an independent labour-rights monitoring organization, conducted a 10-year-long investigation into workers’ wage trends around the world. The research was published by the Center for American Progress, an independent policy think-tank.

“Workers’ wages are lower now than 10 years ago in most of these countries,” Hensler said. “While garment work may provide better wages than the informal sector or agricultural labour, it provides far less than an actual living wage, a mere fraction of a living wage.”

The consortium is supported by 180 affiliated universities and colleges including Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the University of Toronto.

It’s clear the garment industry does not provide a route out of poverty for factory workers, many of whom are women. The report found that in 15 of the top 21 apparel-exporting countries, the average wage for garment workers was only 36.8 per cent of what a family needs to survive.

Among the top four clothing exporters to the United States, prevailing wages (pay before taxes and excluding overtime) in 2011 for garment workers in China, Vietnam and Indonesia were 36 per cent, 22 per cent and 29 per cent of an actual living wage, respectively, the report said.

But in Bangladesh — which has become a flashpoint for the garment industry after the Rana Plaza factory collapse killed 1,129 in April — prevailing wages provided workers just 14 per cent of a living wage.

These incomes do not provide families with adequate nutrition, decent housing or the minimum necessities needed for a humane and dignified existence, Hensler said.

“The only way workers can even hope to close a portion of the gap between their regular wages and what they need for their families is to work extremely long hours of overtime, and they still end up in poverty,” he said, adding that the industry is notorious for failing to pay legally required overtime.

Wages are also dropping in most of the leading apparel exporters, from Mexico to Honduras to Cambodia, according to the consortium’s research.

The leaders in the race to the bottom — a competition of who can pay the least while producing the most — are Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Cambodia, according to the report.

Workers in these nations saw the largest dip in wages between 2001 and 2011. Wages fell by 28.9 per cent in Mexico, 23.74 per cent in the Dominican Republic and 19.2 per cent in Cambodia, the report showed.

Orders surged into the Mexican garment industry after the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect, Hensler said, but then the global system of import quotas expired in the middle of the last decade and production shifted rapidly to China and other lower-wage countries.

“Mexican manufacturers came under a lot of price pressure and that burden was shifted onto workers in terms of declining wages,” he said.

Governments in some developing countries still view low labour costs as an incentive to attract business, said Sabina Dewan, the director of globalization and international employment at the Center for American Progress.

“That needs to change. Governments should not be exploiting low labour costs as a means to gain a competitive advantage,” she said.

Bangladesh has recently become a leading garment exporter. But real wages in the country fell by 2.3 per cent over the 10 years covered in the study, she added.

Corporations have a role to play in improving conditions for workers, Dewan said.

“If the corporations made sure suppliers were paying decent wages and maintaining fair and decent labour practices for workers, I think that would make a big difference,” she said.

There is hope in initiatives such as the recently established Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, a legally binding agreement signed by 80 leading retail brands to improve the lives of workers.

“The accord was a great thing. But why does it take a factory collapse and thousands of people dying before companies sign on to such an accord? Isn’t it just basic morality?” Dewan said. “Human rights would dictate we would pay attention to basic conditions for workers before a disaster like this strikes.”

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.